PITTSBURGH — By the time the count was in, the crowd outside Consol Energy had swelled to an estimated 20,000. Well before, it had reached “everyone should feel uneasy about this” levels.
Traffic along Fifth Avenue was a gnarled mess — you could stand outside adjacent parking garages, wait for the people who’d chosen their work lot poorly and pick out the exact moment they realized the magnitude of their error. Making it into the arena was a feat unto itself. A semi-emergency call was placed with the mayor’s office to set up another outdoor projection screen, which was the on-paper reason all those people showed up.